


Chapter 4  - A Sword of Air and Darkness: We Who Hunt Monsters

by Chibojan



Category: Loki/Thor - Fandom, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor - All Media Types, Thor/Loki - Fandom, Thor: Tales of Asgard
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-10 01:39:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6932644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chibojan/pseuds/Chibojan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We follow Bal, who is on a critical mission on which Loki - and Thor's - lives depend . We see Loki and Thor through his eyes and we begin to learn about the Great Game of which all Nine Realms are a part. Is Loki a pawn or a knight in the game? Or will the forces around him rend him in pieces?</p><p> And what bond does he have with Bal and the monstrous rider in black?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chapter 4  - A Sword of Air and Darkness: We Who Hunt Monsters

I hunt monsters.

My name? Call me Bal. Old weaponsmaster, now a faithful servant to the Princes of Asgard. And other things as well. But that will do for now.

My mission, the work of many years, went up in flames when the lives of Loki and Thor imploded. I blame myself. I thought I had more time but that is almost always a mistake. I underestimated Odin, and I shouldn't have. I know him of old. Very wise, very subtle and has the frighteningly powerful ability to convince himself of the truth of his own lies. There is no more dangerous ability.

I hunted Loki in the pits of the Chitauri and lessened their numbers somewhat. By the time I caught up with him his mind had been mauled and taken over. I had hoped the lad would claim his power and shake them off but there again, I was at fault. Mine was the task to guard and defend - but the most powerful weapon I had – the truth – was the one I did not use. And Loki needed it – he was very, very short of truth, and nearly died for its lack.

In my business, the Great Game, truth is so highly valued we rarely use it. We live by lies, deception, and illusion. My truth would have burned down the world around Thor and Loki and – well, I was weak. I made a horrible error, I let myself become fond of them both. But especially of Loki, of course, for I had a bond with him, a hideous bond but a bond all the same.

Every day I thought, _Today is the day. Today is the day I drop this façade and lock those green eyes with mine and say, "Everything you think you know is a lie,"_ and unleash him. I had the same task with Thor, of course, but however much his heart bled, Thor, with that inner light of his, would still be Thor and Loki? I would rip away his very identity and leave him raw and bleeding without even a name.

I think – may the God of War forgive me – it was Loki's eyes that made me postpone my cruel task. Eyes like that exist in only one place and all that I loved once died there.

Odin, however, had no such scruples.

I managed to stay in the Game. I could not free Loki from the Chitauri but I did manage to get him out of that hellhole under Asgard. I never for one moment doubted Thor. It was simply a matter of logistics. All I had to do was bring Thor down there so he could see what the "confinement" his mother had fought for had turned into. God of Thunder indeed. I watched them bring out the bodies of the guards the next morning. "Hope it was worth it, you bastards," I said.

And Loki so broken, ill even then with Chitauri poison running through his heart and mind, and the guilt that hung round his neck like a rotting corpse. I knew his healing had to come from a place inside him and that place, for now, was scorched earth. When Loki succumbed, which I had been expecting, I deceived Thor. I soothed him with folksy wisdom (Now, Lord Thor, he's a strong lad, we'll pull him through. Prison fever, he has, from laying in the filth with open wounds). It took me, a Jotun Seer (who came because I had something on her that would cost her her head and I was prepared to use it) , and words of power I hadn't used in centuries to bring him through. Not entirely a lie, maybe- he did have fever, and it was from filth and open wounds – but it was the filth of evil and the wounds were the ones on his heart and mind.

It was a huge risk, and Thor caught me at least once but I told him it was just an old wives' charm I had said over Loki. "Can't hurt him, and it may help, my Lord." I remember coming in with fresh linens and there he was, with his face in his hands, sitting by Loki and Loki emptying all the horrors of Chitauri torture out of his mind. I wasn't quite ready for that, it didn’t fit into my plans – Thor is a weapon one has to wield with great care.

"Can this be true?" he asked me in despair and agony, as it spilled out of Loki, all the things they'd done that would have destroyed a mortal in moments. Perhaps the worst of it was when Loki (who was wandering so far I did not know if I could retrieve him) said, "I called and called you, Thor. I needed you and you never came – " I didn't need Thor burning down the Dark Realms any more than I needed him to know who had blocked those cries for help from his mind, so I said, "He's burning with fever and raving, he's no idea what he's saying, it's just horrors and evil dreams. " I sent him out to get my pack and had five minutes in which to throw up a wall and call down protection and I almost didn't have enough time – or strength. They were thick outside, those sucking bastards, panting and slavering for Loki.

And Thor in torment. Mjolnir was no help to him, being Crown Prince no aid – he had no one but me to support him. Whatever malice Odin bore Loki, he loved Thor and yet the young Prince was as alone as if he had been a stranger in the house. There he sat all night, with a basin and a cloth in his big hands, bathing Loki's face and begging him to forgive him. It wrenched me so I nearly broke cover, and loosed that storm – but all it would have been was a glorious death for us both. We needed Loki to win the day.

Now we that hunt monsters, we sacrifice our souls to the Protectorate, and our hearts as well, but mine had begun to grow back. I had begun to feel pity and compassion and love again. It was no asset to me, I can tell you.

"There, lad, there," I said that night, giving Loki a drink of something to give him dreamless sleep – although it had less to do with herbs than magic. Those pain-glazed green eyes opened and I lost my hold for a moment. _I'm at your back, Loki, with everything I have. Don't be afraid._ "Who are you?" he whispered, for his defenses were down, and he heard me. I held his head and said, "A friend, that's all. Drink this, now. You're a little bit out of your head –"

It had been, however, too near a call. I was shaken, and that doesn't happen often. I knew I was close to being knocked out of the Game and I had one throw left and it was not a sure one by any means.

I couldn't see her anymore, she had locked me out but when I called her she came. Old love is very powerful. And, may I add, so is hate.

I rode out to the furthermost hill in the farthest reach of Asgard and there she was: she rose up out the darkness, there all at once at the top of the hill – but that is of course an illusion, I expected that.

I have been part of the Protectorate too long to be awed by much, not even the Chitauri impress me anymore, but when I saw her – and it has been decades – it was hard to believe she was real. She rode up on a huge black horse, its hooves shod with spikes and the backbones of demons woven in its mane. The bardings of her reins were made from the skins of creatures of darkness, and their claws depended down like pearls from Hell. She wore a cloak that rendered her all but impossible to see, black mail and boots that came up over her knee and had scabbards down the side for the long slender daggers needed to kill the Undead. All was darkness under her hood, which blended into the night but I saw her eyes glittering. Not the whites; she had none; they were black, and her irises silver.

And she was bloody furious. "You are not allowed to call for me," she snarled. Her hood fell back and in the moonlight I could see the terrible burns on the left side of her face, and the delicate black scrolling on the right. Her hair was knotted back and I could see where the fire had burned away her hair on the left side. Only a lump remained of her ear on that side and in bitter mockery she wore a tiny silver dagger thrust through it.

"You came, though," I said. I approached her and found forty inches of cold black steel an inch from my throat.

"I did," she spat, "but only because I was curious, what you could possibly have to say to me – you, carrying chamberpots for the Aesir!"

"It's a mission. You do what you have to. I need your help, Karaya."

"Really? I don't carry chamber pots – or wipe their asses, either." She pulled off her spiked gauntlet and lifted her hand, on which the flesh had been burned off – it was a skeletal hand with shiny red skin stretched over it. "This is the gift they gave me. I have not forgotten, and neither have I forgotten this," she said. She turned her face so I could see the melted flesh, as if I did not see it every night in my dreams. "And yet there you are, their fucking servant. I killed the last fool who asked me what you were to me."

"I have a _mission_ , Karaya –"

"Stow that," she hissed. She slammed her sword back in the scabbard. "You failed your task. Your name is not even mentioned anymore. This second chance of yours, it's like giving an idiot a stick to play in the shit with and think he's a cook. Now what do you want?"

"The Chitauri are reaching out again for the youngest Prince, Loki. I came near losing him to them. I can't hunt them and maintain my persona."

"I weep," she spat. "I fucking weep for you. Loki, who fell off that ridiculous bridge and let the Chitauri eat him alive? And went after Midgard. Midgard – that cowshed! Oh spare me, I've no interest in your domestic dramas. Let them all fall into darkness, those lying, malicious bastards."

"If they get Loki, your task - the Protectorate's task – will be much harder. He has power."

"Yes. They'd love to get their hands on a young immortal with the kind of power I've heard he has and if they do, well done. Give a bloody sheep power and you've got the same thing. He doesn't know how to use it, I've no time for such. I am not a shepherd dog to protect little sheep who can be taken that easily. Destroying your precious young master – I suppose you call him that, or maybe my lord? Prince? Pulse o' my heart? – would take me less than a day, if I was feeling energetic. Pah! I thought you were going to offer me something worthwhile. I am done here." She picked up her reins and spat in my direction.

"I haven't told you what I have to offer yet."

"What?" she asked. "Say something about glory or honor or kinship and I'll gut you."

"What you like best. Power. Chitauri power. You kill their minions, their puppets, and the power they used to animate them is yours. You'd like that."

She leaned down. Her teeth were serrated, the canines longer than the rest. "I ought to kill you just for that. No one can take power unless they have the Words of Nzarh and you know it."

"I hold the words," I said quietly. "I'll give them to you. Freely. Do as you like with them. You don't even have to honor our bargain – although you will, that's too juicy for you to pass up."

She sat back up. "You have the words? You've been disavowed from the inner circle. I think you lie." But she was interested, I could tell.

"I have them, Karaya. Why would I lie? To what purpose? Have you no trust in me left?"

"Not one single fucking drop," she said.

"Good. Then something I taught you stuck. Do you want the Words or not?"

She studied me. Her black hair loosed itself and whipped in the night air. "And what do you want, for me to help you with your lamb? Your little lost Loki lamb, bleating for help. I hope he realizes how privileged he is. Not all of us did so well."

"He's got no idea, Karaya, and that's my fault. Most of this is my fault, if that makes you happy to hear me say it. I'm trying to undo what I've done. You wouldn't know about regret, would you? Or forgiveness?"

She looked into my eyes and I could see my reflection. "Those words are like the barking of dogs at night, nothing. You didn't have any regret when it came to your own, did you?"

"I have," I said, "nothing in my life except regret."

"Give me the words. I can smell Chitauri blood, I want to be hunting. I'll kill for the power. I'll kill for the fun of it. But don't ever think I am killing for you – or Loki. Has it started to rip him apart yet? I'd love to see that."

"Yes. If it continues he will die – and they will own him."

"They'll own him. You can't stop that once it begins. I've seen it before. Unless you're strong like me. I was strong. I burned it out of me. He will die. But it's nothing to me. He'll just be something else to hunt."

Around her throat was a black chain with a the tooth of a Jotun ice-beast hanging from it. She preyed on demons, monsters, creatures of darkness, like a wolf, and anything the Protectorate sent her after, she destroyed. She was one of them. There was black ice in her veins. Pitiless, loveless, heartless and flawless: a monster killing monsters.

And I had trained her.

"Give me your sword. Don't be stupid, give it to me," I said when she hesitated. She handed it to me hilt first. I slid my wrist across it in one sharp move. My blood ran down in the channels created by the runes engraved on her blade. She gave a little excited hiss like a cat, when she smelled the blood.

I said the words: they are strong and wicked and will turn on you – I will not record them here. But when I finished the edges of her sword gleamed with eldritch light. I handed it back to her and pressed my hand on the my wrist until the lips of the wound closed and it vanished.

She held it up. "Oh yes, I like that. I like that very much," she breathed. She purred over the blade. "Mmmm, I can taste it now."

I called my horse to me. "Be careful, because it can destroy you. But you know that."

"Of course I do," she said contemptuously. She smiled and the irises of her eyes narrowed and went diamond-shaped. "In six months I'll be able to take Malekith himself," she breathed, like a woman in desire. Then her hardness returned. "And I'll take care of your little Chitauri problem," she said, sheathing the blade. "I love watching them rot in moments."

"Go in safety," I said, making the circle and cross of the Protectorate.

"Go to Hell," she said, and spun her horse so close to me I had to leap back. She laughed in scorn and galloped off and the night swallowed her. I leaned against my horse. I felt very weary suddenly.

"Good-bye, daughter," I said.


End file.
